"All right, stop crying now. I'll put some medicine on it for you."

He patted my head gently, the way he always did when I broke, as though tenderness were a debt he could settle with his hands. Then he rose and crossed the dim bedroom toward the bathroom where the first-aid kit was kept, muttering over his shoulder as he went.

"Look at you—such a big girl, but still afraid of pain and always crying. What would you do without me?"

I stared blankly at the red burn mark on my wrist. The skin around it had already begun to swell, glossy and tight under the low lamplight of the penthouse suite. Beyond the window, the city stretched in disciplined lines of amber and black, the Valenti-owned blocks visible from every angle, as though even the skyline existed to remind me whose roof I lived under.

Yes, I'd been spoiled for a full seven years. What would I do without him?

"But, Damien, I don't want you anymore. I don't want this fake love anymore," I said to myself, the words no louder than a breath. My thumb rubbed once over the inside of my wrist—above the burn, where the pulse still beat steady—before I lifted my chin and composed my face into the neutral mask he expected to find when he returned.

That night, I couldn't sleep well and woke up covered in sweat. The sheets clung to my skin like something alive, and for a disoriented moment, the faint hum of the building's security system sounded like a voice whispering from very far away. The guarded penthouse was silent the way places controlled by armed men are silent—not peaceful, just held.

Just as dawn was breaking, Damien pulled me out of bed.

I grumbled, trying to push him away, but he just chuckled and leaned in to kiss me. His mouth was warm and unhurried, and his hand found the back of my neck with the casual possession of a man who had never once questioned his right to touch me.

Instantly, all my sleepiness vanished. I almost slapped him, but barely managed to hold myself back. My fingers curled into the pillow instead, knuckles white for a single second before I released them.

Luckily, it was just a quick kiss.

"Awake yet, my Sleeping Beauty?"

I turned away, wiping my mouth in disgust. "It's the weekend. Why can't you let people sleep in?"

Damien looked helpless. "Did you know you had a fever last night? Get up; I'm taking you to the hospital."

Although I felt mostly fine—a low ache behind my eyes, a heaviness in my limbs that could have been grief as easily as illness—I couldn't argue with him, so I reluctantly got up. He was already dressed, dark trousers and a charcoal pullover that made him look like any other wealthy man heading out for Saturday brunch, not the underboss of a family whose name made federal prosecutors lose sleep. A soldier waited by the front door without a word, keys already in hand.

The drive was short. Damien kept one hand on my knee the entire way, his thumb drawing absent circles against the fabric of my coat. I let him. Habit was a muscle I hadn't yet learned how to unclench.

In the hospital corridor—a private clinic the Valenti Family kept on quiet retainer—we unexpectedly ran into Alessia.

It looked like she had hurt her foot and was struggling to hop down the hallway on her own, one hand braced against the pale wall. Even injured, she carried herself like a woman who understood exactly what kind of room she occupied and who would be watching.

Damien, who had been gentle just moments before, instantly frowned. Forgetting I was beside him, he rushed over to Alessia and held her, asking in concern, "What happened?"

Alessia smiled at him, looking past him toward me. Her gaze landed on mine with the precision of someone who had already catalogued every detail she needed.

"It's just a sprained ankle. What a coincidence; you two are here for a checkup too?"

Damien's expression froze. He glanced back at me, his eyes shifting, and I watched his hand drift to the strap of his watch and adjust it—a small, careful correction, as if the leather had suddenly grown too tight.

"Yeah, my 'little sister' here had a bit of a fever, so I brought her in for a check-up."

I had grown used to being called "sister" by now. From the moment Damien decided not to go public with our relationship, he introduced me as his friend's little sister, someone he was helping to look after. An associate's kid sibling in need of a roof—nothing that would raise questions at sit-downs, nothing that would complicate his position within the Valenti hierarchy or his careful courtship of allies who expected a man of his rank to remain unattached or, at the very least, strategically matched. Only his closest circle knew of our true relationship, and even they treated it like a fact best left unspoken—an arrangement tolerated under the broader umbrella of Omertà, the code that kept every inconvenient truth exactly where it was: silent.

Alessia nodded. "She's staying at your place, so of course, you have to look after her carefully. You two go on; I need to head over there." She gestured toward the other clinic on the opposite side of the corridor.

Seeing her start hopping again, Damien didn't think twice before scooping her up in his arms. The motion was fluid, automatic—the kind of reflex that lives in the body long after the mind has tried to bury it.

"Let me take you over. Elena, wait here for me."

For some reason, as soon as I saw Alessia, I suddenly felt weak, drained of all energy. I leaned against the wall, saying nothing. The corridor smelled of antiseptic and something faintly floral—her perfume, still hanging in the air where she had stood.

Damien hadn't actually asked for my permission. After those words, he was already carrying Alessia toward the other clinic, her arm looped around his neck, her face tilted close enough to his jaw that she could have whispered anything and I would never have heard it.

The fact was, no matter how well he acted, when faced with Alessia, genuine feelings slipped through, betraying the facade. The careful underboss, the man who weighed every word at every sit-down, forgot himself completely when she was in the room. And Damien didn't even realize it.

I forced a bitter smile, turned, and walked to my own clinic.

Apparently, it wasn't just in my head; after checking my temperature, I learned my fever was as high as 41.3°C. The burn had become infected, worsened by my recent emotional stress, leading to a viral infection that required IV treatment. The attending physician—discreet, paid well for his silence—noted the wound on my wrist without comment, though his eyes lingered a beat too long before he wrote the prescription.

Out of habit, I reached for my phone to call Damien, but stopped myself before dialing. My thumb hovered over his name, and for a moment I could feel the shape of every call I had ever made to him from rooms exactly like this one—waiting rooms, hallways, the quiet corners of front-business offices where I sat alone while he handled something more important.

Habit was a terrifying thing.

I gave a self-mocking smile, put my phone away, and headed to the IV room alone.

After the IV finished dripping its last clear drop into my vein, the dizziness was worse, not better. The fluorescent corridor of the hospital tilted when I stood, and I caught the edge of the plastic chair to keep from going down. A nurse glanced over but said nothing. In this neighborhood, the clinic operated under Valenti protection money, and the staff had learned long ago not to ask questions about women who arrived alone and left the same way.

Damien still hadn't returned. No call. No message. Not even a one-line text sent through one of his soldiers.

Reluctantly, I decided to call him first to avoid any misunderstandings. My thumb rubbed once over the inside of my wrist before I lifted my chin and pressed the phone to my ear. The line rang four times before he picked up, and in those four rings I heard the distant rhythm of a restaurant, silverware against porcelain, low voices, someone laughing softly.

When he heard I was still at the hospital, he paused for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Elena. I planned to come back for you right after taking Alessia home, but her stomach started acting up, so…"

Before he could finish, I overheard a waitress in the background. "Sir, your dishes are all served. Please enjoy your meal!"

Though Damien quickly covered the receiver, I'd already heard it all. The ambient warmth of a dining room, the careful deference in the waitress's voice, the kind of service reserved for a man whose family name kept the restaurant's lease cheap and its liquor license untouched. He wasn't at a hospital. He wasn't tending to anyone's stomach. He was eating dinner with her.

"It's fine. I'm on my own. I can manage."

I said it to reassure myself and to reassure him. The words tasted like nothing, the way words do when you've rehearsed them so many times they've lost all meaning.

Just as I was about to hang up, he suddenly called out my name. "Elena, just head home. I'll explain everything later."

Explain what, exactly? Just more lies to string me along.

I ended the call without a word and arranged for a driver to take me home. One of the Family's contracted car services, the kind that didn't log destinations and didn't talk. The sedan smelled of leather cleaner and faintly of cigar smoke from whoever had ridden in it last. I pressed my forehead to the cold window and watched the city slide past, every block a piece of Valenti territory I had learned to navigate in seven years of silence.

But that night, Damien didn't come back.

Kept awake by the fireworks outside, I pulled out my tablet and resumed sketching custom jewelry designs for a client. The work was steady, careful. I drew the curve of a setting, the angle of a stone, and let the small precision of the task hold the rest of me together. The explosions rattled the glass of the penthouse windows, bursts of gold and red over a skyline that belonged to men like Damien.

While working, I accidentally brushed the chat app in the lower right corner and a new post from an hour ago appeared.

It was from Alessia: a beautiful shot of fireworks bursting against the night sky, captioned with poetic words: After half a lifetime away, I return to you. And here, the fireworks bloom, a welcome in all its glory!

I stared at the post for a long time. The photo was taken from a rooftop I recognized, the terrace of the Valenti-owned hotel on the waterfront, the same terrace where Damien had once held my hand against the railing and told me no one would ever know about us but that it didn't mean I mattered less. I had believed him then. The fireworks in Alessia's photo looked the same as they had that night, bright and temporary and meant for someone else's celebration.

Only when I tried to log out did I realize the chat app was still logged into Damien's account on my tablet. His messages, his contacts, the careful digital architecture of a man who compartmentalized everything. I could have scrolled. I could have read every exchange between them.

I felt uninterested in prying into their flirtations. I simply logged out of the app, set the tablet down, and turned off the lamp.